129: Chapter 129 The Counterintuitive Nature of Blood Poison

She entered the office.

Chen Qing approached the computer with familiar ease, turned it on, and connected a strange terminal to it.

"Don't ask; if you do, the answer is that it's a professional skill of an assassin."

When the computer booted up, it displayed a black screen with a mess of garbled code. Chen Qing didn't hesitate for a second, her fingers flying across the keys with a clatter.

She hadn't turned on the lights; in the pitch-black office, only the faint blue light emitted by the computer illuminated her face in an eerie glow.

Outside the office, people came and went to fetch water several times, yet no one suspected that anyone was inside.

Soon, Chen Qing found a trove of information based on the poison spirit bamboo shoot.

There were deleted chat logs between Jin Yulong and members of the organization, as well as records of the poison spirit bamboo shoot being marked and logged into storage, and tampered-with inspection reports.

Click! Chen Qing clicked the mouse and began copying.

While waiting, she thought of something, opened a search box, and typed in "Li Yu".

Soon, a pile of chat logs appeared, mostly snippets of Jin Yulong talking about Li Yu with others. Aside from expressions of insults and dissatisfaction toward Li Yu, there were no new findings.

Suddenly, an assassination mission popped up.

The date was clearly from early this morning, right when Jin Yulong had just left the Wild Horse Pharmaceutical Factory.

In other words, he had no intention of keeping the assassination mission on her; he planned to find someone else.

A cold glint flashed in Chen Qing's eyes. She continued searching and soon, following the trail of this assassination mission, found a newly drafted analysis report.

"Based on Chen Qing's multiple failed assassinations and the unbelievable reasons for her failure, it is sufficient to prove that she has developed an emotional bias toward the mission target and lacks sufficient loyalty to the organization. Recommendation: eliminate..."

Chen Qing's gaze hardened, and her expression sank instantly.

She hadn't expected Jin Yulong to be so suspicious. Even though she still carried the marks on her body and had to rely on the organization to survive, he hadn't given up his suspicion of her.

He was even preparing to take action against her.

The only good news was that this report hadn't been sent yet.

Perhaps it was due to the outbreak of the blood toxin in the beast, or because Zhou Ya had requested the poison spirit bamboo shoot, but Jin Yulong was worried that things might be exposed and implicate him, so he hadn't managed to send it yet.

Chen Qing tapped her finger lightly on the mouse, staring at the report on the computer, caught in a dilemma.

First option: delete it. Second option: keep it. Third option: tamper with it.

If she deleted it, Jin Yulong could simply draft it again, and the outcome wouldn't change at all.

If she kept it, Jin Yulong wouldn't even need to change a single punctuation mark to send her—and even Li Yu along with her—to their graves.

That left the final option—tampering with it.

Change the content and then send it. If she was lucky, Jin Yulong would see that the report had been sent, assume it had been sent out, and think nothing more of it.

If she was unlucky, he would click in to check, confirming his judgment that she had betrayed the organization.

At that moment, the data finished copying.

Chen Qing put away the terminal and stared at the computer, her expression flickering between uncertainty and resolve.

A. Delete; B. Keep; C. Tamper.

Facing these three options, Chen Qing made her decision.

D. Burn it!

Three minutes later, Chen Qing emerged from the office. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, she leaped back to the stairwell. Just as she climbed onto the window, she heard rapid footsteps and anxious shouts echoing in the corridor.

"Fire! Vice President Jin's office is on fire!"

Boom! The flames triggered an explosion. By the time the shockwave of the blast reached the stairwell, Chen Qing's figure was already gone.

Ten minutes later.

When Jin Yulong saw the charred office and the computer that had been burned down to its skeleton, a wave of lingering fear washed over him.

"That was close. Good thing I wasn't in the office just now, otherwise I might have been burned to death inside."

"But it's strange, why would it just start burning for no reason?"

He muttered to himself, but at the same time, he breathed a sigh of relief.

That computer contained too many of his secrets. He had wanted to get rid of it several times before, but Special Assistant Yang had been watching him too closely. If he replaced the computer, the old one would likely be subjected to data recovery immediately.

This fire had caught him off guard, but it burned well. Once it burned, the records were gone.

Thinking this, Jin Yulong could barely suppress a triumphant smile. It wasn't until he heard others shouting "Special Assistant Yang is here" that he hurriedly reined in his smile and put on a look of distress.

...

When Chen Qing returned to the Advanced Cultivation room and found Li Yu, she saw him standing before the experimental bench with an incredibly grave expression.

Before him was a raging, blood-red flame.

The flames boiled and churned, as if countless venomous snakes and wicked dragons were entangled together, emitting a thick scent of blood, barely half a meter away from Li Yu.

"Watch out!"

Chen Qing said, her figure flashing as she blocked Li Yu, pushing him backward.

Li Yu came to his senses and laughed: "It's fine, these flames can't reach me."

Bang! The flames expanded a little further outward, only to collide with a layer of glass.

Chen Qing only then noticed the protective barrier and breathed a sigh of relief, stepping back behind Li Yu.

"How did it go?"

"I got it. I also set fire to Jin Yulong's office."

"Then he must be thrilled."

"No," Chen Qing said, taking out the terminal and shaking it, "I copied everything that needed to be copied."

Li Yu looked at Chen Qing and gave a thumbs up. The latter's eyes narrowed slightly, and a faint smile curved her lips.

People are just so strange. When doing the same thing, being praised by someone you care about makes all the hard work and risk feel worth it.

Li Yu's recognition made Chen Qing wish she could go back and set another fire.

"Did you encounter trouble with the blood toxin experiment?" Chen Qing asked again.

The smile on Li Yu's face faded, and he nodded, saying: "I've discovered some troublesome phenomena."

Chen Qing looked on with confusion.

Li Yu looked at the churning flames inside the glass case. Through the flames, he saw the growing blood toxin, lowering his voice as if to avoid being heard by it.

He said: "These blood toxins completely violate the elemental laws of this world. They are not afraid of elements and prefer the extreme. Extreme cold or scorching heat not only fails to kill it but actually increases its activity."

"That sounds like a lot of trouble," Chen Qing said.

"That's not the most troublesome part," Li Yu said. "Besides liking extreme elements, it has another very lethal characteristic."

"What is it?" Chen Qing asked.

"Quality," Zhou Ya walked over with a grave expression, holding a freshly printed inspection report. "Experimental results have proven that the higher the quality level of the beast, the stronger the activity of the blood toxin, and the greater its aggression."

As soon as these words were spoken, Chen Qing was stunned, and Li Meng, who was on the sofa nearby, was also frozen in place.

Another point that completely defied common sense.

Generally speaking, the higher the quality and strength of a beast, and the more extreme its elements, the stronger its resistance to toxins and injuries. Because of this, these beasts often live the longest.

But this blood toxin was completely the opposite. The higher your quality and the stronger your strength, the greater the reaction when it loses control, and the greater the damage received.

This meant that going forward, once beast casualties occurred, they would start dying from the high-quality ones.

In an instant, the three of them realized something and looked at Li Yu in unison.

High quality... Who else in Ningyang City raised beasts with higher quality than Li Yu's? There was no one left.

Li Yu closed his eyes and slowly uttered four words: "Sky-Shattering Fire Dragon."